Our quality reports
At the German Heart Center at Charité, we offer all types of surgery for congenital heart defects at a single location , i.e. all known and conceivable corrective operations as well as all palliative operations – and this for all age groups from newborns to adults, including artificial heart therapy and heart transplantation. In particular, we want to take care of problem patients who cannot be offered further therapy elsewhere.
Today, most congenital heart defects can be treated successfully. With approximately 5,300 heart operations performed annually for congenital heart defects at 22 centers in Germany, the operative mortality rate is less than 5 percent thanks to manifold advances in diagnostics and therapy in Germany (source: German Heart Report 2024). Nevertheless, approximately 600 children with congenital heart defects die each year, many of them in their first year of life, which is more children than die from cancer, for example.
This is also due to the great diversity and complexity of congenital heart defects and represents a major interdisciplinary challenge. Only when every cog meshes with the next, only when all diagnostic, indication, and treatment decisions are made correctly and with the utmost care and expertise on a daily basis, can a very high quality of treatment with low morbidity and mortality ultimately be achieved.
We summarize the results achieved every three years in our quality report and make them available to you. We have chosen a format that gives you quick access to all essential information on news, indications, and mortality rates for all operations performed at the German Heart Center at Charité.
To the pediatric heart surgery quality report
The wonderful heart graphics are also provided to illustrate the various congenital heart defects to your patients – with the kind permission of Jan Bazing (bazing@illustrationsatelier.de) and Kinderherzen e.V..
My team and I are happy to answer any questions you may have about this quality report.
Please feel free to contact our secretariat and the special outpatient clinics.
“Trust does not arise just like that, not by chance; it arises when we can consistently demonstrate excellent treatment quality.”
Prof. Joachim Photiadis, MD, Director of the Clinic for Congenital Heart Defects – Pediatric Heart Surgery
“Trust does not arise just like that, not by chance; it arises when we can consistently demonstrate excellent treatment quality.”
Prof. Joachim Photiadis, MD, Director of the Clinic for Congenital Heart Defects – Pediatric Heart Surgery
